Missing Birds

 

This has been the year for missing birds. We keep seeing huge raptors spiraling over the mountains, and they vanish just as I get the bins on them.

Over and over again. Then yesterday we went down to the river late in the afternoon. There were sixty or so ducks out where the Schoharie meets the Mohawk. Probably ninety percent of them were American Black Ducks, plus there were a few Mallards and a sprinkling of Common Mergansers. 

And something else. Six diving ducks that spent mere seconds on the surface before disappearing below the ice-strewn water. I could not focus the camera on them before they vanished. I finally got the one terrible photo, which you can see above.

Next we went owling out on Lynk Street and environs. We probably saw two Short-eared Owls. One was perched in a distant elm. I just got him in the camera view when my glasses (distance, can't see through the camera with them on) thumped off my head over my eyes. By the time I shoved them up he was gone.

Within half a mile another bird flew up off the edge of the road right over the windshield. Right size, seemed the right color, couldn't focus fast enough to be sure. Close, but no cigar.

Fast forward to this morning just at the edge of daylight. I was out with the dog. Traffic was heavy already so it was hard to hear, but I swear I heard an owl. Trouble is it was so darned noisy that it could have been a distant dog barking, and there was no way to discern the pattern of the call. "Whoo cooks for you" or "Two Two twoo twoo"? Hard telling, not knowing.

Curses, foiled again!

There is a consensus between what I think and what a birder on the ABA ID site thinks that the ducks were Surf Scoters,  but I don't think the photo is good enough to call it. Dagnabbit.

Thus, I remain skunked for the past couple of weeks alas. At least it appears that the ducks are finally starting to move through our area. Better luck next time.

 

Owling